


Lucky Boy

by Tseecka



Series: A Heart's a Lucky Charm [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Kid Fic, Prologue, Storytelling, The Enchanted Forest, bby!Felix
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-07 21:49:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tseecka/pseuds/Tseecka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long before Neverland, before Peter Pan, before Henry and the Heart of the Truest Believer, a young boy named Felix grows up in the Enchanted Forest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to my newest endeavour! This is Chapter 1 of what is destined to be an enormous, multi-chaptered romp through the imagined backstory of one of my favourite Once characters, Felix! It is a WIP, but I am going to do my best to get a chapter up at least once a week. I hope you like what you read and that you'll join me going forward!

It’s a magical thing, growing up a boy in the Enchanted Forest. Everyday life is a fairytale, regardless of the mediocrity of the day to day, no matter how many fairies actually figure in to his individual tale. Each and every waking moment is filled with the stuff of legends, with swords and sorcery, and even when the swords are wooden sticks and the sorcery is a heavenly bite of a mother’s apple tart, it still holds a quality of magic unique to life in that fairytale realm. There is, too, a limitless potential that comes with being born, no matter whether he is a prince or a trapper’s son; there are equal tales told of heroes with origins as each, and a boy’s birth does not dictate his potential for greatness.

At least, that was what Felix’s mother told him. As she pulled the thin coverlet up over his shoulders and brushed his tangle of wheat-blond curls out of his eyes, she would whisper reassurances. ”But though the Prince was named somewhat and came from somewhere else than you, my son, you live in an Enchanted land, and there is no reason his tale cannot be your own.”

“But though the maid was born a lass, and in the waters of the Deep Lake, you live in an Enchanted land, and there is no reason her tale cannot be your own.”

And it was true, too, not just the idle dreaming of a loving mother. Jakob, the cheese-maker’s son and only five years older than Felix, had been on his way to join a travelling band of bards and merry-makers when he had run across a fairy in the wood. He was always singing, though he couldn’t carry a tune if he had a slop bucket to cart it in, but he had an impeccable sense of rhythm, and it was for his skill with the tambour that the bards had taken him on as apprentice--until the fairy, in return for some small feat, had blessed him with the voice of an angel. Not three weeks later, he had left the bards, and was sitting in silks and velvets in the court of some faraway King. Jakob’s family had used to live barely a league from the cabin that Felix’s father had built for them, and he was far from the only familiar name to have found its way into legends--Karrine, and Curly, and the nameless daft girl that the weaver had taken in who had turned out to be the cursed princess of a woodland, and no human at all, which explained why Felix had been unable to convince her to dance with him at the Summer Festival.

“But though they were not the son of a poor trapper, and had never been teased by the other boys for their soft-spoken ways and frail heart and silken hair, you live in an Enchanted land, and there is no reason their tale cannot be your own.”

* * *

“Alanna! Are you going in there to tell the boy another daft fairy story?”

Felix carefully tried not to look at the closed door to his bedroom, focusing instead on the little straw knight his mother had bought for him at the market. His lance was crooked, the tuft of seed at the tip of the stalk bent, and Felix decided he would find the little knight a new lance tomorrow. He tried not to listen to the quiet, strained conversation taking place outside of his room.

“Gerhold, he’s still just a boy. They do him good--he always drifts off to sleep with such a smile--”

“You coddle him far too much. He’s nearly seven; you keep telling him stories about Lazy Lobs who get all their dreams without puttin’ in a day’s worth of work, he’s goin’ to turn out just like ‘em. A lazy good-for-nothin’ what can’t even lace his own boots.” There was the sound of loud clanging, steel and iron all clattering about--he was out to trap, then. “I’ve a mind to take him out with me one of these nights, aye, put him to good and honest work. See how much he likes them fancy tresses and fairy stories and good luck name when his hands is scratched and scraped raw from the wire.”

Felix’s mother gave a sharp gasp. “He’s a seven year old boy, and a gentle soul besides! If you took the time to know your own son, you’d realize that. Trapping? Killing animals? He’d have nightmares for weeks!”

“It ain’t right, Alanna. A boy should trap, and hunt, and fish. I tanned my first hide at ten, with my father, from a rabbit I noosed myself. A boy too soft for that--well, as I see, he’s got no right bein’ a man at all.”

It wasn’t a new conversation for the little boy to hear. His father had never liked the stories his mother told; he came from another land, one where magic was a rarity, and fairy stories were just that--stories and nothing more. Privately, Felix thought his father was scared of magic, but it was a thought he would never dare voice aloud. Their voices died out somewhat, and he heard his father’s heavy boots over the wood floor, then the bang of the door. Soon after, his mother appeared in the doorway, peeking through as though she had thought he might be asleep.

“Hello, lamb,” she said, smiling gently. There was something off about it that sent a twisting feeling into Felix’s tummy, but he ignored it, and shuffled up in bed so he could sit up and take the steaming mug of tea she had brought for him. It warmed his fingertips--the nights were getting longer, and colder, and he’d taken to wearing his gloves to bed.

“Mama?” Felix asked. He stared into the cup, watching the tea leaves swirl about in the water through the mist of fragrant steam. He didn’t look up to meet her eyes, and his toes curled nervously under the bedcovers. There was the sound of rustling as she dug into the pocket of her apron and withdrew her fine silver comb, and the brush with mother of pearl in the handle. He fidgeted a little as she began their nightly ritual, carefully combing the tangles from his hair as she held it between her fingers.

“Did you hear your father and I outside?” she asked. Felix nodded quickly, still not looking up, but he winced as the motion made the comb’s teeth tug at a stubborn rat’s nest. She sighed. She set the comb aside and carefully began working through the tangle with her fingers, while Felix chewed at his lip and took a sip of tea. He was quiet, scared of saying aloud the thoughts that had been in his head as his parents had argued.

“Well, what is it then?” she prompted. Felix darted a look at her through the curtain of hair that had fallen forward over his shoulder, but she was steadfastly looking at her work, and not at his face. He closed his eyes.

“Can you cut my hair?” he asked softly.

It wasn’t an easy thing to ask. He knew that his mother loved his hair, and had done since he was very little. He’d been born with hair that was as red as a fire brand, according to her, though there had been little of it on his head. Within the first few months, however, it had grown in, and faded to wheat-and-honey blond. As he had grown older, it had revealed a natural curl, “as though hundreds of fairies had spent a summer twisting every strand into springs,” Alanna had used to say, twisting a lock of it lovingly in her fingers as he sat on her lap and chewed on wooden blocks.

Now, she was silent, her fingers still working at the tangle as though she hadn’t heard--though Felix knew she had, and felt terribly for even bringing it up at all. He tried, in vain, to tell her his reasoning. “Papa doesn’t like it, and the other boys all tease me--they call me girls’ names, and Raoul tugs on it and rubs dirt into it, and it’s always getting in my eyes--”

She gave a small huff--not at him, he knew, but at the tangle in his hair--a final tug, and flourished her fingers. Like magic, the snarl disappeared, the strands separating and flowing like silk thread between them. Felix had often wondered if his mother had magic, just a little bit, enough to darn socks and find the pulls in woolens and untangle hair; he wondered if that was why she loved his hair so. Carefully, she brushed the hair back, and tucked it behind his ear. Her fingertips rested on his chin. He looked up from his tea and into her eyes, feeling sheepish and selfish for asking.

“Felix, my love,” she said to him, and then stopped, as though searching for the words. “All folk have something magical about them, something that is theirs alone, by right. We can give names to our children, teach them things about the world and how to be in it; but every person has something that is theirs alone, a gift granted by the gods.”

“But what if I don’t want it?” Felix asked. His eyes began to well with tears. Alanna tutted softly, her hand moving to cup his cheek as she gazed down at him with her warm, tired eyes.

“Then how would the fairies find you, to begin your tale?” she asked. “The poor things, with magic to give to my lucky lad with flaxen locks, hm? They’d be wandering and searching, for days and days, never knowing you were right under their noses the whole time!” She gave him a smile, and he returned it, even though he didn’t really feel like it. His mother was kinder, gentler than his father, but they shared a common stubbornness; once their minds were set, there would be no budging them. She took up the comb again, reaching for the next section of his hair. He sat quietly, sipping at his tea.

“Heroes are no more remarkable than anyone else, Felix,” she told him afterward, as she passed the thick bristled brush over his hair once more. It gleamed in the lamplight as she showed him his reflection in the mirrored back, and he smiled, touching it lightly. “It is the remarkable things we each have that give every person the potential to become a hero. To give up what makes us who we are--well, you might as well give up on happy endings!”

Mollified, Felix nodded, and carefully laid down on his pillow, curling onto one side with his hand under his cheek. Alanna smiled at him, stroking his hair, and tucked the comb and brush back into her apron. “And I think I have just the tale for you tonight, my lamb. It’s the story of a princess who was much like you. She had remarkable hair that was as useful as it was beautiful, and she yearned for the outside world, to travel the land and touch the stars. But though she was a princess, far from her loving family, and granted with magic as well as beauty, you live in an Enchanted land, and there is no reason her tale cannot be your own.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alanna and Gerhold are characters of my own invention; Alanna is a native of the Enchanted Forest, while Gerhold does hail from another land. 
> 
> I realize that we have already got casting news for Rapunzel at this point and that she is a POC. I am RIDICULOUSLY happy about this--but since a character with dark hair is somewhat less relateable for a young boy like Felix with blond hair, and we don't know how much Once is going to tie in their Rapunzel's story with Tangled, I decided to stick with the Disney version.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter comes to the Enchanted Forest, bringing with it sickness. Felix must, for the first time, truly face the specter of "growing up".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for potentially upsetting descriptions of less than humane trapping practices and animal death.

The story of Rapunzel was not the last tale his mother told to him at night, her happy ending not the last one that resonated in his ears as he fell asleep with a smile on his face and his hand resting, warm and safe, under his mother’s dry palm and graceful fingers. As winter came to the Enchanted Forest, though, it was her story that rose to the fore of the little boy’s mind as he sat out on the stump in the yard, kicking at snow drifts with his boots and trying not to listen to his mother and father arguing, again, through the kitchen window. A lifeless, shapeless hill of snow surrounded by tramping boot prints was the only evidence of the snowman he’d tried to build; it was too cold for the snow to stick to itself. His fingers were beginning to freeze inside the threadbare mittens, though the rabbit fur around the cuffs kept his wrists warm, but he didn’t want to go inside. He stared down at his feet, and took another bite of the carrot that was meant to be the snowman’s nose. The cold had made it go mushy and soft, and he made a face but swallowed anyways.

Rapunzel had had beautiful hair, soft and golden and longer than Felix could easily picture. Certainly it was much longer than his own, he thought, and his hair wasn’t magical. Hers had been worth hundreds, maybe even thousands of gold sovereigns. His hair wouldn’t fetch much more than a few silvers, he knew. But there was an old woman at market every week who had often offered his parents just that for his hair. Alanna had always refused her, laying a protective hand on her little boy’s head and telling the woman that it wasn’t for sale--the balding lords and aged ladies could find tresses elsewhere--but that hadn’t stopped her from asking. Now, with his parents arguing inside, he wondered if either of them had brought up old Mother Maggie.

His mother had been wracked with coughs for a few weeks, now, ones that made her shoulders shake and rattled around her ribs. Her voice was hoarse all the time, as though it hurt her to speak. Her stories were shorter, and she didn’t do the voices anymore, and she often had to stop to release a bout of coughs that would sometimes last for minutes before she could go on. She still brought Felix his nightly cup of tea, but now she set a filled iron kettle on the bedside table as well. His tea was plain, but hers was saturated with honey, so thick that it made the drink slippery and slimy when Felix asked to try a sip. She said it helped her throat, made the words come out easier; often the entire pot was gone by the time she finished their nightly story.

With the onset of winter, night came more quickly and lasted longer, and many of the more valuable animals his father trapped were snug and warm in their burrows. They would sleep the winter away, Felix knew, only waking sporadically to go in search of food. His family had decent stores set by, salted meats in the larder and the barrels of root vegetables his mother had set aside from her garden; but they had no fresh produce, none of the milk and cheese that his father loved or the ground flours and fresh fruits and spices from distant lands that his mother used to fill their home with the scents of the season. They relied on the winter trade for that, on the few pelts and sacks of jerky his father was able to produce during the snowy season, and had always made just enough to get them through the winter. Some years were leaner than others, but they survived, and come spring were able to enjoy their own meager version of prosperity.

But medicine was expensive, and difficult to come by this far out. The chemists and traders only passed through the winter markets once a month. Their wagons and horses couldn’t make the passes once the snow fell, thick and deep and often up to the beasts’ bellies. Instead, they came on sleighs pulled by burly, thick-furred dogs, able to travel on top of the snow, gliding over it like ice. The jostling, speeding sleighs were much more precarious, though, and the risk of the valuable cargo of glass phials and bottles arriving half broken and shattered was more than the chemists were willing to risk, more than once a month.

Sickness would often descend on a town in the winter, and while herbalists did their best to stave off minor chills and fevers, many more would fall ill with much more serious ailments. Medicine in the far reaches of the Forest was in high demand and short supply when the snows came, and prices of the merchants reflected that fact all too well. And it was to the merchants that Alanna and Gerhold would have to go; the herbalist’s remedies, the honeyed tea, served to alleviate her symptoms temporarily, but Felix would wake in the middle of the night with his mother’s tormented hacking coughs ringing through their little house. She was only getting worse.

So Felix sat on the stump, his bum growing cold against the damp, snowy wood, and kicked up plumes of snow and thought about asking to go to the market with his father to see Mother Maggie so he could ask her to buy his hair. He wondered if his mother would be angry; surely, though, Felix cutting his hair was better than dying? And maybe, maybe he wouldn’t lose his happy ending, after all--the heroes, the men and women in his mother’s stories, they always made sacrifices. They were always asked to give something up, to sacrifice their greatest treasures, just before it turned out that that was actually the way to their greatest reward. Even Rapunzel, who had been willing to give up her happy ending with her prince in exchange for saving him, and who had lost her greatest treasure--her hair, just like his--only to realize that that sacrifice would grant her and Eugene their happy ever after!

He slid off the stump, tossing the carrot top--woody and bitter, no good for eating--onto the dirt pile. He was only seven and a half; there would be other treasures in his life, he was sure of it, and while he didn’t like to think about it he was a little bit happy at the prospect of finally losing his hair. His mother would be sad, but she would get better, and the other boys wouldn’t call him “girl” and tease him and his father would maybe, finally, be proud of his son. With that thought shining in his head and lightening his heart, he slipped through the snow to the door, grasping the latch with his mitten. It turned in his hand, and his father stood framed in the doorway, bundled up in his cold weather clothing, snowshoes in hand.

“Papa!” Felix crowed excitedly, peering past his father’s waist into the house to check for his mother. Her coughs sounded from the back of the house; she was in her room, probably bundled up in bed against the chill air. He grinned up at his father. “I know how we can make some extra money, to buy medicine!”

His father looked down at him, face haggard and expression grim. “So do I, boy,” he said gruffly, and he tossed a pair of snowshoes down into the snow. Felix looked down. They were too big for him; his mother’s, then. The rawhide had worn out of his own pair last winter, and they hadn’t yet been fixed. “Put those on. You’re coming out on the lines with me.”

Felix stared at the snowshoes, not willing to look back up into his father’s eyes as Gerhold pushed past him. The door was pulled shut behind him, and Felix didn’t look up, not wanting to chance that his father would see the tears forming in his eyes. He didn’t want to trap! He knew what his father did, knew what got food on their table and furs in their clothes, but that didn’t mean he had to like it, and he had never wanted to be a part of it. He slowly bent down and picked up the shoes, dragging them back over to the stump so he could sit to put them on and tie the laces.

“...I thought I could maybe sell my hair,” he ventured quietly, still not looking at his father. He heard Gerhold pause in his fumbling, heard the long, deep exhale of breath as his father. “Mother Maggie will be at the market this week, and I know she’ll buy it from me, she offered five silvers last time, and it was four and a copper the time before that! It would be enough to buy Mama’s medicine, wouldn’t it?”

“It’s a good thought, lad,” Gerhold said finally, if a bit reluctantly. “But your mother doesn’t want you cutting your hair, and I’d be worth no more’n a squirrel hide if I brought you back all shorn.” Felix swallowed, trying to keep down the wail that wanted to come out, and focused on tying his shoes.

“She doesn’t want you taking me trapping, either,” he muttered under his breath. His nose was running; he sniffled, then wiped it on his sleeve and hoped his father thought it was the cold. It was difficult to see the cords through the tears. Unable to get a good grip through the wool, the rawhide slipped through his fingers, and binding came undone. He heard his father mutter something that sounded like ‘useless’, and the tips of his snowshoes soon came into Felix’s view. He knelt down in the snow, deft and experienced hands making quick work of the ties, then gripped Felix’s chin in one strong hand. His father had never hit him, but Felix flinched anyways, fearful as always of the strength Gerhold possessed and the anger he often seemed to keep just barely in check.

“She don’t have to know about the trapping,” he told his son firmly, and Felix drew his eyebrows down in a glare.

“I don’t like keeping secrets from Mama,” he told his father.

Gerhold grimaced with annoyance. “I can’t bring in enough skins by myself, Felix. We’ll not have enough coin to pay the chemist when he comes to market, and your mother won’t make it to the next trip. So you either come with me and help, and not breathe a word to Alanna about it--or you can stay here, and it’ll be your fault when she dies.” Felix’s eyes got wide, and he wrenched out of his father’s grasp to look at the house, as though expecting to see his mother, or his mother’s shade, already in the doorway. His father stood, dusting the snow from his knees, and pulled a sheathed blade from his belt. He slapped it, handle first, into Felix’s mittened hand. “Now let’s go. I don’t want to lose any of the light.”

The snow was heavy and soft, barely compacting under their feet as they trudged in silence through the wood. Alanna’s snowshoes weren’t as heavy as Gerhold’s, but they were still heavier, and bigger, than what Felix was used to. More than once, he didn’t lift his foot high enough, and the toe of the shoe caught under the top crust of icy snow and threatened to send him sprawling forward on his face. His legs were aching, his hips burning from the repeated wrenching of his near-falls, but he didn’t dare say a word to Gerhold. Instead, he trudged along quietly, and didn’t look into his father’s face when the older man had to stop and wait for him to catch up.

The winter forest was beautiful, though, and Felix distracted himself from the awful task ahead by looking around, peering through snow-draped pines in hopes of glimpsing the bright plumage of a winter bird. More than once, he saw the staggered tracks of a hare, and silently hoped that whoever had left them behind hadn’t found their way into his father’s snares. The sun had yet to reach its zenith, and was often obscured by the grey, listless clouds that clogged the bright blue sky, but every so often it would break through and turn the entire forest into a dazzling, sparkling wonderland. Felix snatched at the branch of a pine tree as he brushed past it; his mitten came away clutching a tiny icicle, and he grinned before sticking it in his mouth to suck on it. It began to melt, teasing his taste buds with a hint of pine and taking the edge off of his growing thirst.

If he ignored the sullen silence his father had lapsed into, broken only by occasional, impatient huffs, it was almost nice. For a brief time he was able to forget why they were there--at least, he was, until his father’s demeanour changed and he shouted, “Aha!”, pointing through the brush. Felix followed the gesture and felt his heart sink like a stone at the unmistakeable red fur against the pristine white snow.

His father’s demeanour had changed, as though the sight of the fox lying in the snow was enough to brighten his spirits. He hurried through the trees to where he’d set his snare, thumping into the snow next to the body and examining it carefully. Felix hung back, trying to look anywhere but at the creature’s corpse. He felt like he might be sick, and sucked on the icicle to keep his stomach calm. It seemed like his father had momentarily forgotten about him, which didn’t bother the boy at all, until Gerhold raised his head and gave a snarl of impatience.

“What are you hanging about back there for? Get over here and help me with this!”

Felix held back, shaking his head. He didn’t want to, didn’t want to get close to the dead thing, the dead, beautiful thing. Foxes were one of his favourite animals; they featured heavily in some of the stories his mother told, witty, cunning creatures, using their brains to get out of sticky situations. They were beautiful besides, he thought, with their thick red coats and brightly intelligent eyes. He’d always wondered what it would be like to meet one, to befriend one like the fairy-blessed people in her stories. He’d imagined it would be somewhat like the dogs that wandered the town, friendly, willing to let you put your arms around their neck and hug tight if you went slow and were gentle. But where the dogs’ fur was coarse and matted, a fox would be smooth and soft and thick, warm with the heat of a living body, and instead of rotting meat and dung a fox would smell like the forest, pine and willow and a little bit of woodsmoke. He remembered asking his father, once, if he could trap a live fox, bring it home to be Felix’s pet. His father had just scoffed at him, cuffed him lightly on the shoulder and called him a fool boy. “They’re wild animals, Felix, they’re not fit for pets. They’ll bite your face off soon as look at it,” he’d told him. But Felix knew differently; his father never listened to Alanna’s stories, after all, didn’t know all the magical and wondrous things they were capable of, but Felix did.

But this--this wasn’t what he wanted. To see a fox, in the wild, instead of as a fur hanging on the wall or as a mantle about someone’s shoulders, yes--but alive, alive and breathing and vibrant. Not a cold and empty body, with its fur matted with blood around it’s neck where it had struggled with the wire snare and its tongue lolling out of its frothy mouth in death.

Felix turned into the bushes and was sick. He wished his mother were there to comfort him and to help him wipe the taste from his mouth. The bile tasted like acid and pine.

When he turned back, his father was looking at him with distaste. “She really has ruined you, hasn’t she? Getting sick at a little blood--if I’d been able to raise you right, you’d be a full on hunter by now!” Felix didn’t reply, just sank down into the snow, staring unseeingly at the dead fox. The snare had cut into her neck, he saw--she would have been fighting and thrashing hard, and for a long while, for it to bury itself that deeply. His father was cutting it out.

He waited a while longer before he finally looked up at Gerhold. “What do you want me to do?” he said petulantly. The sooner they were done, the sooner he could be home, and curled up at his mother’s side listening to stories and forgetting about dead animals in the forest. He’d ask his mother for a fox story tonight, he thought. They were shorter, often, than the others, just fables instead of tales, and it would be easier on her.

His father finished cutting the snare out, and looked up at him. “Come here. I’m going to show you how to release this--then you’re going to follow that game trail, find the other eight snares I’ve got laid out that way.” Felix followed his father’s arm as he gestured with the hand holding the knife. The blade was red, and his stomach turned over again. “There’s another six or seven northways a bit, but they’re grippers. You won’t be able to get ‘em open. So I’ll go up that way and collect anything that’s there while you’re goin’ east, and we’ll meet back here.”

He showed Felix how to release the trick knot that formed the noose, and made Felix practice three times. He couldn’t wear his mittens; the air was cold and the wire was slippery with blood, and the longer he worked at it, the harder it became to see what he was doing through the welling tears. He tried not to look at the fox, focusing only on the knot and not on the soft fur. When they were done that, he had to learn to reset the snare, which was difficult with his fingers so numb he could hardly feel them and his father growing ever more impatient.

Finally, though, his father finally nodded his approval, and Felix dropped the snare as though he’d been burnt. His father dug into his pack and pulled out a burlap sack, folded into a neat square. He took out a second sack for himself, and held it open, nodding to the fox. “Throw that in here.”

Felix froze, staring at his father. He shook his head minutely, not wanting to say no, not wanting to anger the man--but he couldn’t. The thought of picking it up, of wrapping his arms around the stiff and frozen fur…

“You’re going to have to touch something dead sooner or later,” Gerhold said through gritted teeth. “I’m not sending you out to the snares to have a look, Felix. Pick it up, and put it in the sack.” He shook the sack in his hands for additional emphasis.

Felix steeled his nerve and closed his eyes, biting at his lip. He carefully pulled his mittens back on, not wanting to touch it, and took a deep breath before he opened his eyes. The fox was heavy, dead weight that didn’t want to balance in his arms, and he kept his eyes on his father’s face as he lifted. His father held out the sack; Felix let the fox’s body tumble out of his arms and into the burlap. His arms felt numb, like they’d gone frozen where the dead animal had touched him, but he didn’t look away.

His father only laughed, and tied the leather cords around the top of the sack. “”Don’t take so long with the next one, or you’ll be out here past dark,” he warned. He seemed to stop and consider a moment, as he got to his feet and slung the sack over his back. Then he added, under his breath and with a sort of cruel malice tinting his words, “That’s when the wolves come out.”

Felix decided not to tell his father that he wasn’t scared of wolves. Instead, he watched as his father began trudging back along their shoe prints to the main path, and watched him until he disappeared beyond a small copse of birch trees to the north. Only when he was sure Gerhold was gone did he unlace his snowshoes. He kicked them away, watching as they scattered the snow and partially, though not completely, hid the red stain of blood on the crystalline surface. He put his face into his cold, wet mittens, and finally let himself cry. For himself, alone and scared in the woods, with threats of his father’s displeasure and the oncoming night looming over him (for while the thought of wolves didn’t scare him, the thought of being lost in the woods on a cloudy, moonless night without a light to see by was terrifying). He cried for the poor fox, who he was sure had deserved a longer life and a much more dignified death. He let all the fear and all the sadness come bursting up and out of him in great, heaving sobs and fat, heavy tears, until he began to feel tired and his gasps became more like hiccups.

He thought about just staying there, sitting in the snow until his father came back that way and took him home. He thought about running home himself, just going and abandoning the traps Gerhold wanted him to check. The thought of more animals, more dead bodies, squeezed another round of tears from his sore eyes; he didn’t want to see them, he didn’t want to have to cut away their nooses and toss them in a sack. He could lie to his father, tell him that there were no more animals in the other traps; but Gerhold would see his snowshoes, and see that there were no tracks along the game trail, and he’d know Felix for a liar. He’d be punished for it--sent to bed without supper, without a story, which was what he needed most of all. Any other time, his mother would question why Gerhold was punishing their son, and then he’d have to tell her that he made Felix go hunting--he felt a little thrill of glee at the imagined thought of Alanna raising her voice to Gerhold. She hardly ever yelled, and when she did, he knew even his father was a bit afraid of her. But now--

Now she was sick. She was sick, and in danger of dying, and they needed money to pay for her medicine. And in order to get money, his father had to have wares to sell at the market. And in order to have enough wares to sell...he needed to check the traps.

Felix found himself in the odd, uncomfortable position of both wanting the traps to be empty, and wanting them each to have caught a shining, silver ermine, the kind that were so rare that his father had only ever glimpsed one, that nobles would pay thirty gold pieces for. It was a difficult moral quandary, made more so by his being a seven year old boy and unpracticed at wrestling with his conscience. It made his stomach twist and turn, and he frowned.

“Just for today,” he spoke aloud, to nobody in particular; but he hoped the animals of the forest were listening. He hoped they would know that he didn’t wish them badly, not really. It was just that his mother needed it. “Just for today, I have to be a hunter. Please understand.” He felt a little better, saying that--because if they brought enough in today, his father would be set for market, and he wouldn’t make Felix go out on the lines again. He stood up, brushing snow from his bottom, and tromped through the snow--it was over his knees, and difficult to cut a path through--to his snowshoes. He gave the area where the stain was still visible under the scattered snow a wide berth.

It was more difficult lacing up his snowshoes himself, and he regretted tearing them off in his earlier fit. It had been easier when Gerhold had done it, easier when there was a stump he could sit on, but he found that if he settled himself in the snow and stuck his leg up in the air and reached, he could manage the laces. He hadn’t realized how deep the snow was, out in the forest where no one was trampling it down with constant attempts to build things from the snow, and was glad that he had the shoes. Even if they were much too big and tried to trip him up constantly. The game trail was clear, despite the heavy fall of snow, and as he walked further and further east, more and more animal tracks joined the trail, until it was nearly packed firm. He pressed on through the snowy forest and tried not to think too much about why he was there, but the sparkling snow and the birdsong that sounded through the sparse branches now and again did little to distract him from his grim purpose. Still, he was brought up short when he saw his father’s first marker, and a little ways beyond that, a small dark shape lying motionless in the snow.

He stood with the sack under one arm and his other hand resting on his pocket, over the hard lump that was the hunting knife his father had given him, and it took him a long time before he was able to move forward to the trap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding Gerhold's trapping: I tried to do what I could in terms of research, but I'll be honest--purposefully looking up cruel and non-humane trapping methods was upsetting and difficult. Hopefully there's enough here to lend verisimilitude to the story, and hopefully no one will be upset with me for any practical or historical inaccuracies.


End file.
